Here is US NOAA articleon the BC wildfires that discussed the implications of climate change and wildfire (and the research article NOAA citesdoes not explicitly discuss all the fuel built up in the forest due to tree mortality caused by pine bark beetle (“flammable biomass”) – which is another impact of climate change):

The future of wildfires in Canada

Canada is the second most forested country on the planet, and thus, it contains a staggering number of trees. Recent research in the journal Environmental Research Letters and detailed in an article by the Globe and Mail highlights just how difficult fighting wildfires could become thanks to human-caused climate change.

One of the authors of the research, Dr. Mike Flannigan, explains that since climate change will make Canada hotter and drier, the forests will become drier, too, providing more fuel for fires and increasing their intensity. Flannigan mentions that while it is hard to predict, a 10 percent increase in the intensity of a fire could cause a doubling or tripling of the overall area burned.

The research suggests that under a business-as-usual greenhouse gas scenario over the next century, the number of days where conditions are favorable for wildfires to will increase by more than 50% in western Canada, increasing both the fire danger and the cost of fire suppression. Wildfires already pose a significant risk for parts of Western Canada and human-caused climate change could make things even worse. (emphasis mine)

The town allows overnight camping in vehicles in a public parking lot just behind some old marina buildings that have been converted into various marine related shops. So we have a quiet and safe place to rest our bones.

In the late 1800’s, the town was the prime north-west Pacific coast harbor and a Victorian boomtown, but it’s growth stalled and the town went into economic decline as it was bypassed by investors as steam power replaced sail and the railroads went to Seattle.

Today, it has lovely old victorian homes, a smattering of classic Craftsman cabins, a vibrant historic downtown district, remnants of shipbuilding, boating and a harbor life, but its really a tourist and retirement/arts & culture/historic preservation town that is rapidly gentrifying.

I imagine that this is what a harbor town like Montauk NY might have looked like in the 1930’s -40’s – some rich people, but still some organic, real life, before it got overwhelmed by money (not Gatsby’s old money, but Tom & Daisy types).

People here tell me that just 10 years ago, Port Townsend was a hippie town, but now second home rich people from Seattle and California are coming in, changing the culture and housing market. They say they will ruin it, like what happened to Oregon. A woman I met, a native of Alaska living out of her truck, spoke passionately about how she’s seen the changes and how the “Uptown” people resent the old-time downtown hippie folks, like herself.

I guess there’s no where else to go. The rich bastards have gobbled up everything.

Thursday night there was a hot band on the waterfront – it was a hoot to see a hundred old hippies out there dancing!

This weekend there was a blues festival – I managed to crash a show at the Key City Public Theater and – from a front row seat (reserved for band members) – I heard an incredible band, really an informal collective of 7 mostly street musicians, that had come together to play what they called old time American music. They hailed from New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle and New York. They were awesome!

Our daily routine:

rise with the sun, take a walk through the marina (we sleep behind the building in center):

continue walk to historic Uptown, and stop by the bakery for a fresh roll

stop by the Carnegie dedicated library (very similar to the Carnegie Public library in Pittsburgh!)

stroll downtown along the harbor, check out what’s cooking at the very cool Northwest Maritime Center, and listen to the street musicians.

While I’d really like to stay, its time to move on.

Tomorrow, we head west, to the Pacific and the furthest northwest point in the lower 48.

]]>http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/08/so-long-port-townsend/feed/1Lost In The Ozone Againhttp://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/08/lost-in-the-ozone-again/
http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/08/lost-in-the-ozone-again/#commentsSat, 05 Aug 2017 17:40:00 +0000http://www.wolfenotes.com/?p=51379Desperate for a Trump defeat and seeking political relevance, media get it wrong

Parrot opportunistic declarations of victory

If you read press coverage of the Trump EPA’s most recent press statement on the national ozone air quality standard, there are 3 main points you come away with:

1) responding to public pressure, bad press, and litigation, the Trump administration backed away from their ill-advised attempt to rollback the standard and have reversed policy and agreed to implement the Obama EPA standard;

2) the State AG’s and Big Green litigants had a “win” for public health and the Trump EPA suffered an embarrassing political setback;

3) the Obama EPA ozone standard will be implemented expeditiously and the public health will benefit from cleaner air.

All of them are outright false or highly misleading.

This is another example of: 1) opportunistic political players (e.g. NY State AG) self promoting; 2) environmental groups spinning and prematurely declaring victory; 3) environmental groups’ and media’s shared lack of understanding of the regulatory process, which makes it very easy to spin; and 4) media’s desperate need for relevance and incentives to take credit and declare their own sort of victory (e.g. our coverage was influential and led to the policy reversal).

The facts of the matter are: 1) There was no reversal in policy. 2) Trump EPA will not implement the Obama standard. 3) There will be little if any air quality improvement towards attainment of the standard and associated public health benefits. 4) This is not a political or legal win by State AG’s or environmental groups. Just the opposite. Pruitt doubled down and thumbed his nose at and mocked the Democratic AG’s and environmental group litigants.

Not only do environmental groups and media not understand the regulatory process – or the science or law – they fail to distinguish a press statement from a formal regulatory action. They don’t know a ploy from a policy. They don’t even know how to read a press statement. Worse, they naively fail to understand just how cynical, corrupt, and dishonest the Trump administration is. Instead of acknowledging this inconvenient truth, they instead promote their own institutional interests. Disgusting.

1) right up front, EPA reserves the right to issue another 1 year extension, so the so called “reversal” in policy is not unconditional (and it is not even a “reversal”, as we note below):

The Clean Air Act gives EPA the flexibility to allow one additional year for sufficient information to support ozone designations. EPA may take future action to use its delay authority and all other authority legally available to the Agency to ensure that its designations are founded on sound policy and the best available information.

2) By making that statement, EPA effectively mooted the litigation and took the issue out of the courts and kept the ball in EPA’s court.

This manipulative move dodges judicial oversight and allows States, industry, and EPA to exploit numerous technical issues and provides EPA with virtually unbounded legal discretion to delay State implementation and EPA enforcement of the standard.

Pruitt makes all that very clear by emphasizing that EPA will “ensure that its designations are founded on sound policy and the best available information.”

Mr. Pruitt and the Trump administration have very different conceptions of “sound policy” and “best available information”.

And “best available information” is a far broader concept and much weaker standard than “best available science“, so in reality the Trump EPA just made a major announcement about weakening the scientific and legal bases for regulation. Wow! (compare the EPA Mission Statement (which presents the correct legal standard as “best scientific information”) and note how Pruitt omitted the word “scientific” in favor of the broader “information”!)

Upon close and informed reading, that EPA press release language completely destroys any inference that the Trump EPA somehow reversed course and substantively changed policy.

Additionally, Pruitt makes all that very clear politically by emphasizing EPA’s deference to the States:

“We believe in dialogue with, and being responsive to, our state partners. Today’s action reinforces our commitment to working with the states through the complex designation process,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

“Responsive to state partners” is code for no EPA pressure on states to comply in a timely manner and no EPA enforcement of state footdraging, delays, and even outright defiance.

BTW, you can thank Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s “reinventing government” for that Federalist Society’s “States rights” approach to abolishing traditional strict federal oversight of State’s in favor of the “Performance Partnership” (AKA at US EPA as “NEPPS”.)

On top of all that, Pruitt’s concluding remark about “we don’t believe in regulation through litigation” is a slap in the face to the Courts, State AG’s and environmental litigants.

Sorry, but this was no “win” for State AG’s, “Big Green”, and public health.

Finally, the NJ Spotlight story lacks context – specifically, while it correctly includes criticism of President Trump, it fails to mention the fact that President Obama killed former EPA Lisa Jackson’s proposed ozone standard.

Here’s how the NY Times reported that Obama rollback on September 2, 2011 – they too seem to have amnesia, even regarding their own coverage:

“Reaction from environmental advocates ranged from disappointment to fury, with several noting that in just the past month the administration had tentatively approved drilling in the Arctic, given an environmental green light to the 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Texas and opened 20 million more acres of the Gulf of Mexico to drilling. ~~~ Obama Administration Abandons Stricter Air-Quality Rules

So, did everyone forget that Obama also “over-reached”? I sure didn’t, and criticized and wrote about it at the time:

The NJ Spotlight and WaPo coverage also fail to mention another key fact: that the Obama EPA standard is weak.

Obama’s second term EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy – who naively recently predicted a Trump/Pruitt failure in deregulation – rejected scientific recommendations and set the 70 ppb standard “far less strict” than the science supported.

The NY Times story mentions this fact in a curious way, stressing industry’s perspective instead of scientists and public health experts that it was “far less protective”:

In October 2015 the Obama administration set a new national standard for ozone of 70 parts per billion, down from 75 parts per billion. It was far less strict than manufacturers had feared, but industry leaders still criticized the rule as overly burdensome.).

Did Ms. McCarthy “under-reach”?

Where was Big Green litigation and press criticism when all that went down?

My old man worked twenty years on the line And they let him go Now everywhere he goes out looking for work They just tell him that he’s too old I was nine years old and he was working at the Metuchen Ford plant assembly line Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion hall But I can tell what’s on his mind:

Glory days yeah goin’ back Glory days aw he ain’t never had Glory days, glory days ~~~~ Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen, 1984)

He does the same thing in songs like “Born in the USA” and “My Home Town” – crafting the song in such a way as to allow some listeners to draw the exact opposite meaning of the song. That’s why he’ll never live up to the bold legacy of a Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger.

crossing the Escalante River

There’s mosquitoes on the riverFish are rising up like birdsIt’s been hot for seven weeks nowToo hot to even speak nowDid you hear what I just heard? ~~~ The Music Never Stopped (Grateful Dead, 1975)

Star Valley, Wyoming – Bridger-Teton National Forest, 6 miles south of Freedom Wyoming

Im reluctant to write this, because there were so few tourists and summer homes of the rich and famous (we wouldn’t like it to become like Sun Valley), but the finest clear streams with turquoise pools, prolific wildflowers, and scenic hikes I’ve enjoyed on my trip so far were in Bridger-Teton National Forest in the Star Valley Front. Of those, the most spectacular was Strawberry Creek Trail! (of course, I forgot to bring the camera – but below is a view from my dispersed campsite at the bottom):

The hike up to Trout Lake in the Northern Cascades was a close second –

And here’s a different spectacular Trout Lake, just below Lizard Head Pass & Wilderness, Colorado:

Here’s a highlight from Rocky Mountain National Park:

Lovely spot on the Salmon River in Idaho:

How about the Snake River:

The hike above Cutthroat Lake in the Northern Cascades was brutal – I didn’t make it out and back and turned back as the brutal sun hit the trail at 11 am:

But Blue Lake, in Northern Cascades was very easy walk in:

We camped and had our own beach in this spot on the Skagit River – as all sorts of RV’s sped by at 60 mph, rushing to pay to jam into an RV ghetto in Cascade National Park:

Round and round and around we go, where the world’s headed nobody knows.Great googa mooga, can’t you hear me talkin’ to you, just a Ball of Confusion that’s what the world is today. ~~~ Ball of Confusion (The Temptations, 1971)

Because I’ve witnessed this first hand many times over the span of a 30 year career in a State environmental regulatory agency and non-profit environmental groups, and have been documenting, speaking, and writing about this same corruption for years – and have paid a huge price for doing so – I felt compelled to submit this comment below. Who knows, maybe some intrepid journalist out there will break a sweat and do the research or just Google the work I’ve done already (and I can’t even escape it on the road – see this Trust For Public Land scam):

Dear Chris – right in your own backyard, the State of NJ, corporations (and corporate dominated Foundations) basically created the model of funding “legitimate” conservation and environmental groups to control their agenda and advocacy over 2 decades ago.

The cancer has proliferated today to such a degree that it is brazen – openly celebrated as “partnership” and “stewardship” and “sustainable development” and “watershed management” (all these slogan are frauds designed to mask the corruption).

Take a look at the funding and boards of NJ Audubon Society, Sustainable NJ, Trust For Public Land, Nature Conservancy, NJ Future and Rethink Energy NJ. Look also at The Dodge Foundation (Chris Daggett), PSEG, NJ Natural Gas, WalMart, and the Wm. Penn Foundation.

Even individual billionaire’s, like Peter Kellogg, have bought NJ Audubon to promote commercial logging on public lands and land management to promote hunting (“young forests” and “forest stewardship”).

NJ Audubon even has a “Partnership” with Donald Trump!!!!!!

A guy named Mike Catania, previously with an NGO land conservation group, even formed his own corporate consulting group to institutionalize this corruption. When I outed and criticized him, he took down his own 10 year report that documented all the corrupt deals.

The same financial corruption has infiltrated Rutgers and other NJ universities. Take a look at who is speaking and leading the next “Climate Change” conference at Rutgers, for example. Note especially where it is being held, at corporate Duke Foundation led by “entrepreneur” Mike Catania.

I’ve been documenting and writing about this corruption for years.

As a result, my Foundation funding was zeroed and I was basically driven out of the state and am blackballed. I’m living in a van.

Do a word search on my blog, Wolfenotes.com for links to all the documentation.

BTW, using State DEP funds to muzzle critics is rampant as well – check out “conservation” groups that get grants or funding from NJ DEP or US EPA, including American Littoral Society, Clean Ocean Action, all the local “watershed” and land preservation groups and NY/NJ Baykeeper,, NJCF, PPA, etc

[Update: for a disturbing analysis of fire, climate change, and forests, read “The Late Great Whitebark Pine”.I’ve seen all this happening now in many western forests, and conditions now are drier, not wetter as projected, so actual conditions may be worse then predicted.]

I watched for hours as the fire generated an enormous mushroom cloud – I thought this might look like a miniature version of what a nuclear bomb would create. Here’s a broader view:

It got colder and windier as sundown approached. I had to put on winter hat and coat.

We hiked up to the lookout tower at sunrise.

It felt like treading on the edge of the earth – with the wind gusting, I felt like I might just blow away. It was an unsettling landscape, to say the least.

Despite the spectacular beauty, we began the white knuckle drive down as soon as we got back – I didn’t even make coffee. Take a look:

[Creepy End Note: I brought some books along. I just re-read “On The Road” – and in checking Kerouac’s biography this morning from the fine Carnegie Library here in Port Townsend, Washington, I noted that he spent a few months as a fire lookout on “Desolation Peak”, which is nearby to where the photos were taken.

[Update – Kerouac let his “beat” mask slip exactly once in “On The Road”, in a serious passage that is highly revealing as to the underlying reality that heavily influenced the “beat” alienation and rejection of social values.

And that reality is the bomb.

Here’s the passage, in the final chapter, where the road takes them to Mexico. It explains everything: (emphasis mine)

… They [the Sierra Madre Oriental] had come down from the back mountains and higher places to hold forth their hands for something they thought civilization could offer, and they never dreamed the sadness and poor broken delusion of it. They didn’t know that a bomb had come that could crack all our bridges and roads and reduce them to jumbles, and we would be as poor as they someday, and stretching out our hands in the same, same way.

Update #2 – 8/5/17 – here’s a good essay that makes the same point: “On The Beach”

(note: that book and “On The Road” were both published in 1957, the year I was born.)

Bomb train at base of mountains that form boundary of Glacier National Park

I’ve visited and written and posted photos about Glacier National Park and the disappearing glaciers before, so won’t repeat or waste your time with more pretty landscape photos (see thisand this).

In my view, Glacier is by far the most spectacular and significant National Park.

Apparently, many other folks feel the same way, as I was disgusted to learn last week.

First, the coal trains and carbon bomb trains – I can think of no more tragic juxtaposition, given the melting and projected elimination of the glaciers in the Park by 2030 (here’s another broader shot. Location of train is literally straddling the Great Divide. On the right (not shown) is where Lewis and Clark National Forest meets Flathead National Forest):

My prior visit in 2007 was soon after a huge 2003 fire in Flathead National Forest on the western edge of the park. That fire burnt 136,000 acres in the park. I was pleased to see the healthy forest recovery underway there.

Worse, last week, the tourist hordes were so massive, I simply drove right through the Park without stopping, not even for a photo.

Instead I camped on the shore of Lower St. Mary’s Lake, just a few miles north of the eastern park entrance/exit (take a look – how’s that for a campsite? No fees, no rules, no rangers, no noisy neighbors):

After 3 nights there, I drove up to the Canadian side of the International Peace Park and spent some time in lovely Waterton, Alberta (photos – notice how the Canadians emphasize the international aspects and the “Peace Park”! Sadly, that’s something you don’t see on the US “National” side):

Waterton Lake, Alberta Canada

entering Waterton International Peace Park, Alberta, Canada

We don’t need no stinking “Peace Park”! We’re #1! USA! USA! USA!

Crossing the border into Canada was a pleasant experience. The officer was courteous and friendly and asked relevant questions (any guns or explosives?, etc). In comparison, on re-entry, the US Border official was a total asshole.

We rolled up for inspection on the passenger side. I had the passenger side window half rolled up to keep the dog from jumping out and to protect the officer.

But before even asking any questions, he immediately demanded that I roll the window all the way down and as I was attempting to do so he opened the door.

I objected, grabbed the door to shut it, and said he should ask permission. He tussled with me and the door and said he could do whatever he wanted without permission because he was conducting an inspection.

I told him I was a US citizen with Constitutional rights – including privacy – and that I had a dog I was trying to protect him from. I said “You don’t just go and open people’s doors without asking”.

But, after briefly acknowledging my valid point about the dog, he railed on. Instead of the usual appropriate questions, he instead first asked if I was working (because I have a work van?). I replied that I was retired. He then demanded to know “from what?”. I told him that that was an irrelevant question and that I had Constitutional and privacy rights that he was violating.

I was absolutely stunned by his reply – which he repeated 3 times: “No you don’t. You have no rights. You are trying to enter the US. I can do anything I want, including inspecting your vehicle without permission and asking any questions I want. You must comply and answer if you want to enter the Country.“

Fuck that. I turned the engine off and told him he was wrong – that I had rights and that anything he did must respect them and must have a reasonable basis and that my prior employment was not relevant and private information.

He replied that I might be a retired nuclear physicist trying to smuggle nuclear material!

I told him to X-ray the van!

He said “I’m not going to argue with you” and then walked around back, got my plate number, and began a computer check of me and my visa. A few minutes later I was on my way.

The damn fool didn’t ask me if I had guns! Could the NRA Gun Nuts have made such questions taboo? (similar to the terror watch list and gun purchase screening issues, which do not consider gun ownership questions). How could my employment status be more important than whether I had guns?

But, aside from the US border excess, given the existential and immediate nature of the climate change threat to the Park – compounded by fire and way too many tourists – I write this open letter to park Superintendent Mow to remind him of his moral duty to act in light of the nature and gravity of the threats and the overwhelming science on climate change.

Mow has high profile political experience to understand how to make this happen, see his Bio:

Jeff has served on the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and with the NPS Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs. His additional experiences have included: 1) DOI Incident Commander on the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 2) investigator on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska, and 3) Policy Advisor to the fledgling NPS Climate Change Response Program.

.

Dear Park Superintendent Mow:

I am writing regarding existential threats to Glacier NP and your moral and professional duties to act, based on consensus science, the immediacy and magnitude of the threats, and the mission of the Park Service.

According to NPS visitors literature, there will be no glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2030!

The climate change threats alone demand immediate and bold actions – but the gross excedance of the park’s ecological and cultural carrying capacity by hordes of tourists driving in cars is of a similar magnitude.

2. Revoke all vendor service and concession contracts and renew them with a contractual demand that all shuttles, vans and bus fleets be limited to electric vehicles and all buildings be zero carbon by 2023.

3. Order all park employees to commute to work by foot, bicycle, or horseback.

4. Order that all buildings in the park become zero or negative carbon emitters by 2023, via energy conservation measures and on-site generation of non-carbon based renewable energy technologies.

5. Rescind the current ban on bicycles between 11 am and 4 pm! It is absurd!

6. convert current NPS vehicle fleet to electric vehicles.

Glacier National Park is internationally recognized and the existential threat of loss of the park’s namesake glaciers due to climate change demands bold action.

I suggest that you write a policy decision memorandum to your boss in Washington -based on the above list and more! – and copy all Park Superintendents, the Congress and news media.

All you have to lose is your job. And just think of the leadership and public education and parallel actions such bold action on your part would generate!

And you can sleep at night knowing that you did all you could do.

Respectfully,

Bill Wolfe

]]>http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/07/a-carbon-bomb-train-runs-through-it/feed/1Free NJ Weedmanhttp://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/07/free-nj-weedman/
http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/07/free-nj-weedman/#commentsTue, 18 Jul 2017 18:29:53 +0000http://www.wolfenotes.com/?p=51252Demand That Trumped Up Charges Be Dismissed and Abuses of Power Investigated

Here is the latest in the outrageous abuse of police and prosecutorial power in Trenton NJ and the unjust prosecution and persecution of “NJ Weedman”, written as a LTE by my good friend Steve Fenichel, MD.

I urge readers to pressure the NJ Attorney General and the local prosecutor to dismiss the charges and demand an investigation into Trenton Police tactics and gross abuses of power:

7/13/17

Dear Editor,

Yesterday I attended the Bail Request hearing of Ed Forchion, aka NJ Weedman. His words were as inspiring to me as if I witnessed Patrick Henry’s famous statement: “Give me Liberty or Give Me Death”!

Forchion was targeted by the Trenton Police because of his refusal to comply with the Pot Prohibition. The cops forced someone desperate for a “deal” to become their Confidential Informant (CI). The CI was then assigned to entrap Forchion by getting him to sell him Cannabis.

Forchion being indigent was without the tax generated resources of the Prosecutor. His Public Defender advised him to appeal to the Public for help in identifying and understanding all the legal issues which made the CI vulnerable to Police pressure. The public’s response was overwhelming and soon the identity of a troubled individual in major legal difficulties emerged.

Mr. Forchion then made a widely viewed video clip in which he revealed the identity of the CI. In it he requested that his supporters not threaten or intimidate this person. Also, he revealed his legal strategy of forcing the CI to be a witness in his trial. He believed it would prove that he was being targeted and entrapped by the Police which is illegal.

The Prosecutor got the Grand Jury to indict Mr. Forchion for the sale of Cannabis . Then the Prosecutor went further- he got the Judge to add charges of witness tampering by claiming that threats were being used to force the CI to give false testimony. Then as the coup de grace the Prosecutor got the Judge to deny Mr. Forchion his Constitutional Right to bail. All this based on intentional distortion as the Prosecutor was in possession of Mr. Forchion’s clearly laid out strategy video.

So after more than 4 months in Mercer County Judge Massi held a hearing on 7/12/17 to reconsider Mr. Forchion’s bail request. The Judge promised to view the video clip and give an expedited decision early next week after more than 4 months in the jail.

It is hard to imagine a more Kafkaesque incident where a falsely accused person sits in a cell for months while a cynical prosecutor hides the truth of their innocence- but in the USA, regrettably, this is not unusual. When will dishonest Prosecutors be held accountable?

Steven Fenichel, MD

]]>http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/07/free-nj-weedman/feed/0The Creepiest Place In The USA!, USA!, USA!http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/07/the-creepiest-place-in-the-usa-usa-usa/
http://www.wolfenotes.com/2017/07/the-creepiest-place-in-the-usa-usa-usa/#commentsMon, 10 Jul 2017 23:21:27 +0000http://www.wolfenotes.com/?p=51234Living In Their Own Private Idaho Of Denial

I challenge readers to name a place with a creepier Town motto, scarier tourist destination, more destructive major industry, and celebration of a notorious history with continued reliance and pride in Orwellian propaganda.

Take a look at the town motto:

Arco Idaho – The First City In The World To Be Lit By Atomic Power

Here is the local tourist draw:

On December 20, 1951, EBR-1 became the first power plant to produce usable electricity using atomic energy. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) visitor’s brochure

The largest employers are a nuclear waste disposal facility (the Fluor “Radioactive Waste Management Complex”)

and the INL nuclear research facility:

INL’s nuclear energy mission is to develop advanced nuclear technologies that provide clean, abundant, affordable, and reliable energy to the United States and the world [note how they left out the word “safe energy”.]

Take the EBR-1 tour and see what’s behind the building with the Blue Sign and Blue Door with the ominous warning:

Deeply in denial over the total failure of the so called “nuclear renaissance” and zombie nuke plants and still wedded to and shamelessly promoting the same old propaganda for the next generation of nuclear fools: (“Look kids, controlling a nuke plant is sort of like a big video game!” So why don’t you give it a try!)

and ended camped off a National Forest Service road above Turquoise Lake just outside Leadville Colorado:

check out the view from our “dispersed campsite”

Leadville is a hardscrabble old mining town, but it is surrounded by incredible beauty.

Too bad the federal money (and Big Ag corporate subsidies) spent by the Bureau of Reclamation building dams, fake lakes (reservoirs) and other absurd irrigation and boondoggle water infrastructure couldn’t instead be spent on improving the lives of the mostly poor people who live there.

We’re in Boulder today, waiting for our bike to arrive and be re-assembled at the local bike shop.

Take a look at one of our better days (and I left out the reservoir we swam in and a lovely stroll through Twin Lakes):

more from the top of Independence Pass

headwater stream of the Arkansas River, draining Mt. Ebert

we stealthed just off a forest service road. Had to negotiate with a nearly homeowner. Chalk Cliffs in background.

Boie on guard – waiting for nightfall and coyote’s. He managed to worm his way into and slept in the tent with me!

Here’s more from gorgeous Crested Butte, a very upscale tourist but still rugged old mining town (great biking and hiking and fishing and all sorts of outdoor activities!):

Apologies to anyone still reading that I’m so far behind in posting about places we’ve seen along the way. The weather and landscape have been just so spectacular that I’ve had little interest in going inside and writing. Plus, there is very little shade and difficult find a spot to park for a few hours to keep the van cool with Boie inside.

For weeks now – not in any systematic way – we’ve been following rivers towards their mountain sources – Rio Grande, Dolores, San Miguel – and now the Gunnison River.

Now that we’re out of the harsh desert southwest, we’re crawling up the spine of the Rockies now. Here’s a few of the places we’ve enjoyed in the last few weeks:

After Friday night camped along the South Fork, we spent Saturday, my 60th birthday, further north along the San Miguel River. The river is flowing high and fast, after a winter with twice the average snowpack in the San Juan mountains. I had to keep Boie away because he would have been swept away. (photo above – interestingly, that posting on the tree on the left was not put there by Colorado Fish & Game – it was a “placer claim”. The same couple had posted the river downstream for over a mile.)

Before leaving town on Friday to avoid the weekend and upcoming bluegrass festival crowds, we stopped in at Telluride’s “Green Room” – “a recreational and medical marijuana dispensary” – to procure a 1 gram vial of legalized weed (about 4 buds) and get a Rocky Mountain High in the San Juan Mountains. It was quite an experience – although about 5 times more costly than the dope I smoked in college, it was far more potent.

As we left town, we noticed that the South Fork was running very muddy, so drove up a forest service road to try to locate what must have been a major landslide or washout of some sort – take a look how muddy the river was:

Compare that with a clear flowing tributary (look closely to see it flow into the brown muddy South Fork):

Drove maybe 10 miles upstream, but source of the problem was further upstream.

We expect to ramble around Colorado west of the great Divide for the month of June, before heading north to Montana and Glacier National Park.